


Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere

by eye_of_a_cat



Category: Firefly
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-05-15 00:32:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14780244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eye_of_a_cat/pseuds/eye_of_a_cat
Summary: Last time he was in space with River, back when ships meant journeys and not destinations, the liner had carpets the colour of Auroran wine and fresh flowers in the ballroom every night.





	Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on LiveJournal in 2006.

It's the light she sees first. Every time, the same. He can clear all the blades and needles out of sight, promise her nothing will hurt, walk her down to the infirmary as she babbles about integral functions and apples in the distant, laughing way that turns his blood cold, but the moment that light falls onto her skin she's gone. It used to scare him when he couldn't predict her, watching her slip into psychosis with no warning at all; now he can measure that journey in footsteps, and nothing about it is any better.  
  
Of course, he's dealt with patients like River before. He reminds himself of this occasionally, when he's oh, say, trying to convince his crazy sister not to tear pipes off the wall, and it's some kind of comfort. Working in trauma he was always spared the slow, dragging hell of recovery, but he knows damage doesn't wear off with the anaesthetic. For every shattered bone he's dug out of blood and muscle and every heartbeat he's shocked back into rhythm, someone's spent day after day after endless day in physio or speech therapy, staring at dull white walls and believing it's forever. What happened to River was no less horrific than whatever brought those people to his operating table, even if most of her scars aren't physical, and at least she can walk or talk normally, if your definition of 'normal' isn't too particular. But he still can't look at this terrified child, all sweat and panic and frightened hands digging into her own skin, and see his sister. Not with the same eyes.  
  
Left to herself, she'll wander through the ship like a ghost, fingertips skimming over its walls. She finds corners and platforms he never noticed, and climbs railings like a cat. Last week he found her in the engine room, of all places, curled up with her cheek pressed to the floor and a faint, dancing smile on her face, while Kaylee lay reading in her hammock as though any part of that was normal. He's stopped trying to move her. What she needs is a decent hospital, proper resources and specialist care; but what she's got is Serenity, and she'll take its rust and oil and engine grease over any medicines he can give.  
  
Last time he was in space with River, back when ships meant journeys and not destinations, the liner had carpets the colour of Auroran wine and fresh flowers in the ballroom every night. Maids and waiters in starched black-and-white, chandeliers over the dining tables, and you could walk for hours down those long decks with oak-framed landscapes on one wall and windows onto space on the other, never believing you were so far from home.   
  
"Sleeping," River said, the last and only time he mentioned the Endymion. (It had been one of her good days, although that wasn't an excuse - he shouldn't expect too much from her. On his own good days, he knows that.) "Sleeping in bluebells."  
  
"River." He didn't look at the others. "The ship. It was the ship's name. You remember? Father kept complaining about the rooms, and you ordered that soup?"  
  
He couldn't even tell if she was listening. "The ship was sleeping, too," she said. "Dreams in blue, because it's - all the grief, it's not written, and Serenity is, is _different_ , Simon, you don't - they won't -"  
  
"Shh," he said. "Okay, okay. Shh." Not quite fast enough to stop the panic that comes with trying to piece together sense out of chaos.  
  
She's right about this ship, though, and perhaps that isn't so bad. He can't imagine living like this on the Endymion: _Captain, my sister and I are being hunted by about seventeen thousand Alliance forces, so we'd like to stay aboard indefinitely, if that's all right with you. No, well, we can't exactly pay you anything, but I'll stitch up a few cuts from time to time if you don't mind getting your crew to babysit._ So, yes, it's a smuggling ship, and pieces tend to fall off it more than he'd consider normal, and he's still not too sure that Jayne won't throw him out of the airlock one day, but at least River's as close to safe as he can manage. The crew don't even seem to mind her being the way she is. Really, he should find it comforting that she's settled in so well.  
  
Sometimes, now, he goes to the infirmary alone. It's no substitute for having her there, but he's got her blood tests and drug calculations, everything he needs to work in peace for a few hours in somewhere that feels like civilisation. She needs time, he tells himself; time, and patience, and she'll get better, even in a place like this. Time, and it'll pass.  
  
Sometimes, he can make himself believe it.


End file.
